Services for older foster children

Tennessee made significant progress last year caring for foster children who “aged out” of state custody when they turned 18, and a funding boost could accomplish even more in the coming year.

Teens who grow up in foster homes nationwide face notoriously tough challenges transitioning into their adult lives. As many as a quarter end up homeless, and twice that number are unable to find jobs. After a childhood spent “in the system,” many refuse additional government assistance once they’re adults.

And Tennessee, like other states, has struggled to help older foster children find their way. Since 2002, the Department of Children’s Services (DCS) has been under a court order to improve its assistance to teens who age out.

The report, written by the state Youth Transitions Advisory Council, shows the early impacts of Tennessee’s decision to join a federal program that allows DCS to continue helping foster kids until age 21.

The program, Fostering Connections, allows the state to continue paying foster parents who let young adults keep living with them beyond age 18, to soften the transition from a hard bump to a gradual move.

And for those who want to be independent but agree to finish high school or go to college, the state can help them pay for schooling and housing.

Last fiscal year, DCS extended its foster care to 566 young adults over age 18. That’s nearly twice as many young adults getting help as were two years ago.

“A huge reason for some of our uptake is just awareness: getting the word out to our young people, encouraging them to take the service,” said Mike Leach, DCS director of independent living.

Still, just 40 percent of aged-out teens took advantage of the program. Leach still wants more former foster children to accept help.

“When you voluntarily take extension of foster care as a young person, you’re basically saying that you’re going to continue to get case management and continue to get some court management, which can scare some people away,” Leach said. “When they’ve had maybe some negative experience in the past before, with courts or DCS, they may not want to continue with the system.”

Funding to increase

More help is on the way.

An increase in funding for the state’s largest transitional living program for aged-out teens is expected to be announced today.

Gov. Bill Haslam and DCS Commissioner Jim Henry are scheduled to speak at the Nashville office of Youth Villages, the state’s largest nonprofit provider of services to aged-out foster children. Youth Villages has worked with more than 5,000 aged-out teens since 1999.

A contract between DCS and the nonprofit splits the cost of the program, in which Youth Villages case managers are paired with former foster youths for weekly face-to-face visits.

This year, the state and Youth Villages will each commit $3 million, which includes an increase of almost $900,000 from the state. Officials said this could be enough money to serve every teen who ages out of foster care, as long as they sign on to the program.

Already this year, Youth Villages is on track to serve more than 800 young people.

Other successes

For years DCS has struggled to help children who emerge from the system as adults.

In a prior review, DCS found that only a fifth of the transitional living plans written for teens met internal standards. Some of those plans, which are supposed to identify an individual’s challenges and goals, were completed hastily and without the teen’s input. Some were generic.

One particular group of teens in state custody — those involved in the juvenile justice system — continue to be difficult for the state to reach once they become adults. Only 4 percent of eligible delinquent teens accepted extended services once they turned 18, according to the new advisory council report.